A Digital Architecture for Adaptive Cities

Wed 25 October 2017

Mill Lane Lecture Rooms

The talk will explore the necessary capabilities of the digital infrastructure that will emerge during the evolution of Future Cities. Included will be a discussion of large-scale sensor deployments, data collection methods, storage capabilities and also real-time analysis. A significant premise is that City (or Region) should be expected to adapt based on the information being collected, and that adaptation should be based on a prediction of what is going to happen rather than passive analysis of the current state. It has become feasible to deploy thousands of urban sensors (e.g. air quality, waste, vehicles, vermin) where previously a realistic deployment would be a dozen or two. Examples will be provided of the ongoing projects in our local region.

Dr. Ian Lewis is Director of Infrastructure Investment at the University of Cambridge, based in the Department of Computer Science and Technology. He represents the University in the development of digital infrastructure in the region and the Dept of Computer Science in Future Cities programmes. For the past three years Ian has overseen the implementation of a sensor network and data collection platform forming a real-time research laboratory on a regional scale while providing the region with advanced public digital infrastructure capabilities. Prior to this role, Ian was Head of the University Computing Service, following a technology career on Wall Street and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence in the Dept of Computer Science.

Cost: free